“It was awful! Some twenty of our men were fairly blown to pieces. There were other men who were stripped naked, with nothing on but the collars of their shirts and wristbands. Farther aft there was not so much powder, perhaps, and the men were scorched or burned more than they were wounded. I do not know how I escaped, but I do know that there was hardly a man forward of my guns who did escape.” So wrote Captain Heddart, already quoted. The explosion also set the Serapis on fire.
Paul Jones Capturing the Serapis.
From an engraving of the picture by Chappel.
That was the decisive moment of the battle. While the British had been disabling all but three or four of the guns on the upper deck of the Bonhomme Richard, the men in the tops of the Yankee ship and the murderous fire of the nine-pounders, which Jones himself had worked, had gradually driven all the men off the upper deck of the Serapis. That Captain Pearson had escaped injury is a marvel, for he had with undaunted courage directed the battle from the quarter-deck. But as the smoke of the great explosion rose through his hatches, he found himself practically alone, while Jones, with a cocked pistol in hand, was rallying his men successfully to increase the fire of his upper-deck guns.
As the British commander saw the fight, he was now without men, and the other Yankee frigate had but a short time before fired a broadside from which some balls entered the Serapis. Captain Pearson knew nothing of the treachery on the Alliance. He knew nothing (and this was to his discredit) of the real state of affairs on the lower decks of the Bonhomme Richard. Going to his flag that had been nailed to the mast, he tore it down with his own hands.
A moment later John Paul Jones saw that the flag was down, and with such feelings of relief as can scarcely be imagined, gave the order “cease firing.”
CHAPTER X
AFTER THE SERAPIS SURRENDERED
RICHARD DALE TOO BRIGHT FOR THE BRITISH LIEUTENANT—A FAIR ESTIMATE OF CAPTAIN PEARSON OF THE SERAPIS—THE TREACHERY OF LANDAIS—REMARKABLE ESCAPE FROM TEXEL—HONORS FOR THE VICTOR—“THE FAME OF THE BRAVE OUTLIVES HIM; HIS PORTION IS IMMORTALITY.”
As soon as the flag was dragged down on the Serapis, John Paul Jones ordered Lieut. Richard Dale on board of her to take charge, but before he could do so the mainmast of the Serapis came crashing down, pulling the mizzentopmast with it. Then Dale jumped on the rail of his own ship, grasped the brace of the yard from which the lucky hand-grenade had been dropped, and swung himself down on the deck of the Serapis. A few of his crew followed him.